Reptile Vigilantes

It cannot be easy making a convincing storyline about four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and their mutant rat chief, living in the sewers of New York, being overly fond of pizza, and going out of their way to save New York from a copybook gang. To its credit, the movie pulls it off, thanks to in part the disconcertingly attractive journalist April (Megan Fox), the excellent special effects - notably an avalanche and some capers atop the Empire State Building, and an easy-as-pizza-to-digest storyline (call it a bare shell of a plot?) where all key players are inexplicably intertwined. In the balance, an excellent treat for kids, and for adults like yours truly, not a bad deal either

14/20

No Child’s Play

The Lego Movie does some extraordinary execution of the story of a child’s imagination. There is the simple guy – Emmet (Chris Pratt) – a construction worker whom no one notices. Emmet gets thrown into a chain of events that need him to become the Special – to find the Piece of Resistance and stop the Kragle, a weapon unleashed by Lord Business – and save the various realms of Lego world. With more than one innuendo, all of which unravel by the end of the movie, this one has more positive surprises than the "average" adult would think at the outset

14/20

Change of Heart

The despicable Gru (Steve Carell) is fast losing ground among the panoply of the world’s most despicable criminals. The likes of Vector (Jason Segel), young and aggressive, are the new poster boys of the financing giant The Bank of Evil. So Gru – along with the aid of evil genius scientist Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand), and the minions, sets out on an audacious project – to shrink the moon and bring it back to Earth. Even as Vector threatens to steal a march over Gru, the latter adopts three orphaned children – ostensibly to help in the accomplishment of his nefarious objective – with unexpected consequences. With sharply defined characters, especially the Scrooge-meets-The Grinch Gru, and the young and scheming Vector, Despicable Me is a treat to watch and one of the underrated animation movies of 2010

14/20